He lifted his head and met her gaze. “Trust me, Maggie?”
Biting her lip, she stared into his dark eyes and wondered if she’d ever had a choice. He smiled then, and so did she. Because of course, she’d always had a choice.
“Yes,” Maggie whispered, and didn’t have to think anymore.
* * *
As the sun was setting over the ocean, Maggie and Connor slipped on jeans, sweatshirts and sneakers and walked down the boardwalk to the Crab Shack.
With peanut shells on the floor and a monstrous grinning crab crawling on the roof, it shouldn’t have been romantic, but Maggie loved it. They grabbed an empty table next to the full-length plate-glass window and ordered wine. The last arc of the sun shot coral and pink cloud trails across the sky until the sun finally sank beneath the horizon. Once it was gone completely, streetlamps began to twinkle to life along the boardwalk. Their server brought their wine along with a votive candle to shed some light on the menus.
“I don’t suppose you want lobster,” Connor asked after a minute of perusing the specials.
“I love lobster. I haven’t had it in years.” She closed her menu and took a sip of wine. “Yes, that’s what I’m having.”
“I figured you might’ve gotten tired of it after all that time you spent in Boston.”
“Oh no, no,” she said, chuckling. “Lobster was not allowed.”
“Allowed?” He frowned at her. “Is this about your ex? Because I’ve got to tell you, Maggie, the guy sounds like a real jackass.”
She smiled. “What a lovely description. It suits him perfectly.”
Their waiter was back with bread and butter and took their orders.
After the waiter walked away, Connor leaned forward. “I’ve got to ask you something. If the guy was such an ass, why did you ever…” He flopped back in his chair and held up his hand to her. “Wait. Never mind. Don’t answer that.”
“No, it’s okay,” she said, sighing as she buttered a slice of sourdough bread. “Go ahead and ask whatever it is you’re wondering about. You deserve answers.”
He pulled off a hunk of bread and popped a small chunk of it into his mouth. Did he really want to hear all the reasons why she’d stopped loving him? Hell, no. But she was right. After all this time, not to mention the past four hours they’d spent in bed together, it would be smart to get some answers. “Okay, I’ll ask. Why’d you leave me for him?”
She stopped chewing abruptly and tilted her head in confusion. “Connor, I didn’t leave you for him. You and I had already broken up a month earlier.”
He was taken aback. “No, we didn’t.”
“Yes, we did,” she said softly. “We broke up the day you announced that you and your brothers were going to spend a week at some skydiving camp.”
He wanted to ask her what alternative universe she was living in, but he kept it civil. “Maggie, that’s just not true.”
“Yes, it is. I remember it as if it were yesterday because I was devastated.” She tapped her fingers nervously against the base of her wineglass. “I was so proud of myself because I’d managed to keep breathing when you went on that white-water rafting trip to the most dangerous river in the country. But then you went off with your brothers to climb El Capitan in Yosemite and I was breathing into a paper bag the whole time. When you told me about the skydiving, it was the last straw for me. I told you that if you went away, I wouldn’t be here for you when you got back.” She waved her hand in disgust. “Such a stupid, girlish threat, but I meant it at the time.”